Zosimos of Panopolis

Zosimos of Panopolis was a Greek-speaking Egyptian alchemist active around the late third or early fourth century. His writings are among the earliest surviving accounts of alchemical techniques, instruments, and aims.

Alchemy: A historical craft and body of thought concerned with transforming matter, especially metals, and preparing substances. Zosimos is one of the earliest known writers within this long tradition.
Distillation: A separation process that vaporizes a liquid and condenses its vapor to collect components or purified material. Zosimos described distillation as a practical operation in alchemical work.
Pseudo-Democritus: The name given to an anonymous author or group of authors of influential Greek alchemical texts attributed to Democritus. Zosimos cites writings associated with this earlier authority in his accounts of alchemical learning.
Olympiodorus the Alchemist: A late antique Greek alchemical commentator traditionally identified with a writer on the works of Zosimos. His commentary preserves a later interpretation of Zosimos’s authority and teachings.
Visions of Zosimos: A sequence of symbolic dreams in which Zosimos witnesses violent bodily transformations associated with alchemical purification. These visions make his spiritual interpretation of laboratory transformation especially vivid.
Alexandrian alchemy: A Greco-Egyptian tradition of alchemical writing and practice that developed in Roman-era Alexandria and its cultural sphere. Its blend of Greek philosophy and Egyptian craft is the milieu of Zosimos’s writings.
Sublimation (chemistry): The direct conversion of a solid into vapor, followed by its condensation as a solid. His accounts include sublimation among techniques for processing substances.
Maria the Jewess: An ancient alchemical authority traditionally credited with devising laboratory apparatus and techniques. Zosimos treats Maria as an earlier master of practical alchemy.
Synesius of Cyrene: A Greek-speaking philosopher and bishop of Cyrene who lived around the turn of the fifth century. A treatise attributed to Synesius became part of the textual tradition transmitting alchemical discussions linked to Zosimos.
Gnosticism: A modern scholarly term for diverse ancient movements emphasizing saving knowledge and often a contrast between spirit and material existence. Scholars have compared the revelatory and cosmological language in Zosimos’s visions with Gnostic traditions.

Linked from 5 pages